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Hi Just Checking In...

Hi... this is my first entry into the archinect website, and I'm happy to say that I'm the first female to enter into the Columbia GSAPP posts as of late. I'm a practical-minded, sweethearted gal with a heart of stone. I welcome opinions and questions from left, right, up, down, sideways, and elsewhere. (Tsk, tsk).

When I was navigating decisions to attend this school and that, I took my fellow classmates as a big factor into my decision. My goal(!) is to anonymously report the passions and tribulations of my year as they unfold: the immaturity, the super-maturity, the humanity, the stupidity, the painfulness to the great pleasure, of those attending the institution of Columbia as if they meant it and as they really do mean it.

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So the first day of studios has not yet happened, but everyone today did find out who they were going to get for their Fall studio. It is a mystery how these decisions are made through the Columbia lottery system, but one can only guess the negotiation at hand as my housing partner and I spotted the entire team of housing studio profs eating at Cafe Le Monde. In the dark candlelight, familiar faces awaited the consumption of food, and I wondered to myself what it would be like to sit down for a meal with these people. After presenting their studios with some decorum of performance, each to their own, now all the actors would have to sit down and actually CONVERSE. One notorious prof waited impatiently in a line of many for the bathroom, eventually giving up. Another, chatted on her cellphone with her kid with a voice that lacked every bit of formality in the world. Seeing profs act like real people was, well, refreshing.

In the housing lottery, incidentally, no one got their 7th choice, though I met quite a few who got their 3rd and 4th lottery choice. The way I imagine it happening, is that the top 4 choices are highly-negotiated, and perhaps it's not so anonymous in the end. Almost everyone who got into Scott Marble's studio had previous experience with the waterjet CNC mill, and those I thought would find their way into certain studios made it. I don't know why they make us 'de-identify' ourselves by writing our social security numbers on the ballot instead of names, in the end everything kind of seemed to work out the way I expected it.

Instead of preparing for class tonight, I went to an opening downtown called, "The Good Life," by the Van Allen Institute. It was fantastic. NY is meant to be explored and enjoyed beyond the boundaries of Columbia's fortress campus. It's a real treat to see this city and how your professors and fellow alums function in it.

Tomorrow will be interesting. First day of studio... more on that to come.